


Tips From an Expert

by Rakefetzyz



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Blind Character, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 14:57:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16452062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rakefetzyz/pseuds/Rakefetzyz
Summary: Karen asks Foggy for advice on how to act around a blind person. Foggy lists a few rules and tells her some stories.





	Tips From an Expert

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of Foggy advising Karen on how to act around a blind person comes from the story, "What Karen Doesn't Know Won’t Hurt Her" by geeky_neanderthal. I requested and received permission to use the idea.
> 
> I love that these three will be working together again with no secrets this time. But this takes place toward the beginning of season one, before anyone knows about Matt.

Matt reached for a coffee mug and knocked it off the shelf with a crash. 

“Did someone move the coffee supplies?” he asked. 

“I was trying to straighten up.” Karen hurried over to pick up the broken pieces. “I must not have put the cups back exactly where they were before.”

Matt gave her a forgiving half smile. “You’re not the first person to learn the hard way.” He felt gingerly along the counter until he found a new mug.

When Karen and Matt first met she had more pressing things on her mind than Matt’s blindness. Like being framed for murder.

It was only after the lawyers got her cleared and she started working for Nelson and Murdock that she realized she had no clue what to do around a blind person. 

Foggy treated Matt so naturally and was so matter of fact when he helped his friend, it never seemed like a big deal. 

But Karen had never spent time with a blind person before. 

That evening after Matt told them he was feeling tired and went home, Karen asked Foggy to give her some pointers.

“You already discovered one important rule,” Foggy said. “Never move anything he uses without telling him, not even a paperclip. We leave things in place so Matt can find them again.

Karen sighed. “Yeah.”

He glanced at her. “You need me to go over some basic rules, huh?”

She nodded and waited for him to begin.

“The first rule is never talk down to Matt. The guy graduated summa cum laude from Columbia Law School. But some people – they see a blind guy-- they assume there’s something wrong with his mind.”

  
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Matt and Foggy were pleased to land the internship at Landman and Zack. It was a prestigious firm where they were chosen because of their stellar records at Columbia. Both had excelled, Matt even more than Foggy. 

But their immediate supervisor, a Mr. Meltzer, couldn’t seem to accept the fact that a blind person could be intelligent. He spoke to Matt in slow simple sentences and always concluded with a condescending “Did you understand that?”

__

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Toward the end of their internship they were working on an embezzlement case. Matt was convinced that the client had been framed. Foggy had no idea why Matt believed this, but Matt's instincts about client innocence or guilt were uncanny. Matt found a technicality that cleared the client of the charge. It was so technical and so embedded in legalese, even Mr. Meltzer had trouble following it.

__

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Foggy rarely enjoyed himself so much as when he asked their supervisor in his own condescending tone, “Did you understand that?”

  
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“Second rule: pity is a four letter word. If you feel sorry for him you will end up regretting it.”

  
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The criminal law professor they had their first year at Columbia clearly felt sorry for Matt. 

"Everyone be ready with that next week,” she would say when she gave out assignments. 

__

"Don’t worry if you need extra time, Matt” was appended every time. You could almost hear the “poor dear" in her words although she never actually said it.

__

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Matt's term paper explored three ways the professor could have won an important case that she lost before she gave up her practice to become a professor. The paper was turned in a day early.

  
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“Third rule: Never grab his arm and pull him. The way to be his sighted guide is to offer him your elbow.”

  
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They lost count of the times people grabbed Matt and tried to drag him across a street he didn’t want to cross. 

__

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It happened again just the day before. Matt and Foggy had arranged to meet at a corner near their new office and walk the rest of the way together. Foggy arrived in time to see a big burly guy dragging Matt across the street in the wrong direction. 

__

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“Uh, I forgot something on the other side,” Matt told him. The guy seemed annoyed but he dragged Matt back across. 

__

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Foggy decided that a demonstration was in order. He made sure the guy was watching, then went up to Matt and said, “Would you like to take my elbow?” 

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“Thanks,” Matt answered. Foggy gently touched Matt’s arm with his own so Matt could find it. The two walked off together demonstrating the proper way to be a guide. 

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“Fourth: If you see an important sign or notice tell him and read it out to him.”

  
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Foggy answered his phone to a sick-sounding Matt. 

__

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"They exterminated in my building today and the smell is making me nauseous.” 

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Foggy told him to get in a cab, to come spend the night. 

“You know you're sensitive to those chemicals” he half scolded when Matt arrived. “Why didn't you come straight to my place instead of going home?” 

__

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Matt settled himself gratefully on Foggy's couch. "My neighbors didn't think to tell me about the notice the landlord posted in the entrance. I couldn't exactly read it for myself. “ 

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“Fifth: Use clock position for directions. Pretend he’s in the center of the clock.”

  
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“Foggy, could you tell me where my closet is?” Matt asked the first day in the dorm, after they returned from their coffee outing. 

__

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Foggy pointed. “It’s over there,” he said automatically. 

__

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Matt gave a chuckle and raised his eyebrows. 

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“That wasn’t much help, was it?” Foggy asked as he realized his mistake. 

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“Clock positions work best,” Matt explained. 

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Foggy tried again. “Your closet is at your eleven o'clock and about six feet from you.” 

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Matt reached his hand in the direction Foggy had indicated. He took a few steps and easily found the closet. 

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“Sixth: Don’t let people talk to you instead of to him. Matt’s a lawyer. He knows how to talk.”

  
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Foggy was amazed at how often people addressed him instead of Matt once they noticed that Matt was blind. The plump, fifty-ish cafeteria lady at Columbia did this one time too many. 

__

“Does your friend want mashed potatoes or fries?” she said to Foggy. 

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“I don’t know. I’ll ask him,” Foggy deadpanned. He turned to Matt and asked him something in broken Punjabi. Matt was taking Spanish and understood nothing. But he answered Foggy by jabbering excitedly in nonsense syllables.  


__

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Foggy turned back to the lady and said calmly, “He says he wants fries.” 

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“If you break a rule don’t kick yourself,” Foggy added when Karen finished laughing. “I’ve broken most of them more than once. Matt and I are still best friends and partners. Just try to be aware and be yourself. You'll do fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, only some of these are really necessary in Matt’s case. But Foggy and Karen don’t know that yet.
> 
> The cafeteria incident is adapted from a real life story told by the blind lawyer Harold Krents, 1944-1987.


End file.
